


Prelude (Prequel to Your Soul Sings to Mine)

by OldGuardianNewTricks



Series: A Choir of Souls [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Building a family, Death of OC’s not major characters, Found Family, Grief/Mourning, Minor Booker, Mortal AU, No death of major characters, Sadness and Love, Single dad Yusuf|Joe Al-Kaysani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28580607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldGuardianNewTricks/pseuds/OldGuardianNewTricks
Summary: EditYes I have just changed the title of this because I am an idiot!!!A look into Yusuf’s past and how he stopped being Uncle Yusuf and became Baba to Mimma and Paolo. This is a prequel toYour Soul Sings to Mineso I think it would probably make some sense without reading YSSTM first.TW:Grief and mourning- Original Character deaths not TOG characters. Yusuf grieves deeply for them. Also Yusuf’s parents disown him which is as horrible as it sounds.
Series: A Choir of Souls [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2094138
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	Prelude (Prequel to Your Soul Sings to Mine)

He knows the moment his love for them changes. He can pinpoint it to the very minute. He’s always loved them of course, doted on them in fact. He’d seen every single ultrasound picture, helped their parents decorate their nursery and was pacing the waiting room of the hospital when they’d been born. He was the first person aside from their parents to hold them and he loved them as only Uncle Yusuf could.

* * *

Yusuf doesn’t have siblings. There are cousins but none of them are of the same age as him. Either older and with no time for a little kid or much younger and more like nieces and nephews. They were also all back in Tunisia and only visited Utrecht occasionally so Yusuf doesn’t know them very well, despite the phone calls every week. He thinks he can remember life in Tunisia even though they left when he was only 4, maybe he can’t and it is the faded photographs and his parents stories that have formed the pictures in his mind.

Yusuf and his parents are a little unit. Together they face the world and he adores them as only a child can. He likes to spend time with his Mama cooking and and going to his Baba’s shop. Sometimes he gets to sell some of the stock and his Baba is so proud of him he skips all the way home. His mental maths is always the best in the class. 

Ibrahim and Maryam Al-Kaysani love their little boy but as he grows it becomes clear that he enjoys singing and dancing and whilst that is cute in their 5 year old it’s not what they have planned out for him. His music teacher is encouraging and supportive and deeply wants him to study music at university, his art teacher begs him to continue with his art. These ideas go down like a lead balloons and his father refuses to even discuss the possibility. Everything comes to a head when he is 18 years old. A heated discussion leads to many tears being shed and angry words being shared, words that Yusuf would dearly love to forget but his brain insists on perfect recall of each and every one. It only ends when he yells he is gay and his mother cries whilst he and his father shout. Yusuf leaves slamming the door behind him and wanders the streets for hours. That part he only vaguely remembers but when he gets home he sees his bags neatly packed and stacked outside their front door. He bangs on the door for so long he bruises his hand, he shouts for them both till his voice is rough and hoarse but they don’t answer, they don’t come to him.

* * *

His father has always stressed the importance of saving whilst you could and so that is what Yusuf has always done, putting away a little of his pocket money and some from gifts or from working at his father’s shop. He still has very little in the bank but he withdraws it and tries to make a life for himself. He works any job he can get and busks to make extra. He decides to travel around Europe because he is young and free and because he wants to go far away so as to end the temptation to simply run home and bang on the door until he bleeds. His Italian isn’t brilliant but it is better than his French so he heads to Italy. This turns out to be one of the best decisions he has ever made because the universe throws Mia into his life. 

Mia is vivacious, beautiful and fierce. When he first meets her Yusuf actually doesn’t like her very much something that she laughs at delightedly when he admits this years later. They meet Fabio a couple of years later when they are gigging together. Fabio is hilarious, handsome and gentle. Yusuf and Fabio become best friends whilst Mia and Fabio become lovers. Suddenly Yusuf has a family again. A brother and a sister who he loves with all his heart. To make things perfect they are spotted at one of the clubs they play at regularly and Joseph Jones is signed. Fabio is his writing partner, Mia his back up singer. They have a hell of an adventure together and have hit after hit. It’s not necessarily the type of music they thought they would be making but pop music has a huge market and they are especially good at it. Yusuf doesn’t think he could possibly love blood siblings more than he loves Mia and Fab.

Along the way their ‘found family’ finds Sebastien. An ex-hacker not long out of prison for said hacking, Sebastien Le Livre is at a low point after his wife Amelie divorced him. He throws himself into learning about the music industry from them and ends up being particularly good at booking them in for gigs, he even catches the eye of the indomitable Andromache Scythia-Ngo who tries on more than one occasion to convince him to come and work for her at her newly formed ‘Old Guard Agency’. He’s tempted but ultimately likes the freelance life.

* * *

All good things come to an end and eventually Joseph Jones retires. Yusuf has been enjoying it less for about 6 months but the real push comes when Mia announces she is pregnant. This is the most exciting news any of them have ever received. However none of them are expecting to hear that she is pregnant with twins. Fabio is overjoyed but nervous, Mia is terrified and Yusuf is besides himself with excitement at the prospect of being an uncle. Sebastien is quiet, he had been expecting to have a family with Amelie and this just brings it all back. He throws himself more into work than ever, Mia and Fab mask their upset at his ‘withdrawal’ from him but Yusuf knows everything, sees everything-he always has. 

Yusuf is with them for every step of the way. He looks at every ultrasound with wonder. He helps them transform a bedroom in the house they buy in London into a nursery. He buys a flat close to them so he can help with childcare. Mia needs bed rest for the last 6 weeks of the pregnancy so Yusuf moves in. He comes with them to the hospital and paces the waiting room for hours. He prays that the twins will be healthy, that Mia will be fine, that the twins will be healthy, that Mia will be fine and over and over for hours till a shocked looking Fab appears and announces the birth of Mimma and Paolo and that Mamma and babies are all in perfect health. They sort of collapse into each other and cry from sheer relief. Yusuf is the first to hold the babies aside from their parents. 

The twins seem to grow ridiculously fast. Yusuf could swear that one week they are babies, the next they are sitting up and laughing at him. They first say ‘Mamma’, then ‘Papà’ and then ‘Yuyu’. He thinks he might burst with joy when he first hears it and every time after that. 

Time flies and soon they are walking and talking. Sebastien comes back to them and Uncle Basti becomes another part of the family. Mimma or Mia is courageous just like her mother, she’s the little chatterbox and she is oh so curious. Paolo or Lo is much quieter and very shy with anybody outside their family and Celeste who babysits for them sometimes.

Before any of them can really believe it the twins are 3 years old. Their birthday party is a chaotic colourful jumble of music and games. Uncle Yusuf and Uncle Basti as usual try to outdo each other with presents whilst Fab and Mia tell them half heartedly to stop spoiling the children. Yusuf spends time sketching the twins sitting on their parents laps and promises to make a copy for them. 

Life is sweet.

* * *

It is less than a week later when their lives are torn apart, ripped in the most violent, the cruellest way possible. The wrapping paper from the twins’ presents is still in the rubbish bin when Yusuf gets a phone call he will never forget no matter how hard he tries. There has been an accident and what a hateful word that is now. An accident and Fabio and Mia, his best friends, his brother and sister, his family are gone. Just like that they are gone. They were here just an hour ago bright and funny and here in his flat and now, now they are gone. He can’t focus. He can’t breathe and then he hears an awful sound, like an animal in pain but it’s coming from him. This guttural scream is coming from him and he can’t stop. He forces his fist into his mouth just to muffle the sound. As soon as he can breathe he calls Basti and leaves some sort of message and gets to the hospital. He doesn’t know how he gets there just that one minute he is at home and everything is good and the next he is racing down hospital corridors and nothing in the world is right. 

By some sort of miracle the twins are fine. Not a single scratch on either of them but they are confused and upset. As soon at they see Yusuf they run to him, arms outstretched and he clutches them to him. They start crying but he realises that is because he is. He ends up sitting on the floor of some waiting room just cuddling them and singing a lullaby because what else can he do. He is vaguely aware of some forms or other being needed to be signed but the twins are his priority now. He has no idea how long it is until Sebastien gets there but all of a sudden he is. He slumps next to them red-eyed and shocked and kisses the twins.

“There are forms.”

Yusuf doesn’t recognise his own voice. Sebastien nods. 

“I’ll deal with them. Take them home now.”

And so Yusuf does.

* * *

Mia and Fab made a will when they got pregnant and they named Yusuf as the twins legal guardian. This is not a shock as they asked him first and he agreed immediately but it’s not supposed to actually happen. They aren’t actually meant to be gone. 

He moves into their cozy home and puts his flat on the market. He thought it would be wrong sleeping in their room, it should feel wrong shouldn’t it? But he feels closer to them. And everything, _everything_ is wrong anyway.

The grief is unspeakable, unshakable and almost unbearable. It feels like the darkness is just threatening to swallow him whole and if not for the twins he would let it. They are the only light, like twinkling stars. He gets up for the twins, he sleeps so he can be awake for them. He makes food for them and eats so that he can look after them. He tells them stories and he sings to them. He cuddles them and watches them as they sleep. He manages to only cry when they can’t see him. They ask about Mamma and Papà and occasionally toddle around trying to find them. Yusuf thinks his heart has broken so many times it must be shattered into a million pieces. 

He has written to his parents on a few occasions over the years but they always return his letters unopened. Now he is so lost in his grief and so terrified about being a parent that he wants his mother. He wants her desperately just to hold him. He writes to them and pours it all out, every fear and all his grief. This time they cut up his still sealed letter and send it back and he collapses onto Basti feeling like he’s just lost them all over again. Sebastien holds him and promises to be there for his brother as much as he can.

Sebastien is as good as his word and is there as often as he can be, the twins soon have him wrapped around their little fingers. Which is why months later when Yusuf has to go to the solicitor to sign the paperwork both as their legal guardian and for completing on the sale of his flat he asks Basti to look after them.

It is only when he is on the bus filled with a growing feeling of wrongness that he realises it’s the first time he’s left the twins since, since the accident. He starts to feel cold and fidgets with his rings the urge to run home overwhelming. He has to wait for his appointment and whilst usually he would pull out a notebook and sketch or write he simply can’t concentrate. Somehow he gets through the meeting and apparently signs his name on all the right lines. He forgoes the bus and flags down a black cab to get home as quickly as possible. The cabbie is a chatty type and the usually sociable Yusuf would have engaged with him fully but now his brain is just chanting ‘get home, get home, get home’. He taps his hand against his jiggling leg and wills the journey away

“You alright mate?”

“Sorry?”

“You alright mate? You look a bit stressed.”

“Yes, I just really need to get back to my kids.”

‘My kids’, that’s the first time he’s thought of them as his not Fab’s and Mia’s. He normally says ‘my niece and nephew’ but he wants to get home to his kids, his babies. He pays the cabbie and then sprints up the drive whilst trying to pull the keys from his pocket without slowing. He fumbles but opens the door and bursts in only to be charged at by two sobbing 3 year olds. Once more he collapses to his knees and they cling to him 

“You came back!”

cries Mia as she tries to climb up him

“Came ba....back”

Echoes Lo blinking up at Yusuf with tears running down his little face. 

“Yes, I’m back. I’m here now. It’s ok my babies. Don’t cry.”

Basti is wiping his own eyes and trying to look very much as if he isn’t. 

“They were ok until they realised you weren’t here and then they got scared you wouldn’t come back.”

He goes to the kitchen to do something, anything to let Yusuf and the twins have their moment. 

For the next few days the twins are exceptionally clingy and cry whenever Yusuf is out of sight. It’s exhausting but he knows it won’t last. Luckily he has enough money from his Joseph Jones days to stay at home with them for now. Fab and Mia have left some money and he puts as much as he can into the highest yielding savings account he can find.

* * *

For a while they ask when Mamma and Papà are coming home. Yusuf tries to explain as best as he can. He sings the lullabies he heard Fab sing to them and he tells them stories he knows Mia told them. He adds in songs that his own mother sang to him and it feels nice to pass them on. He has a sketchbook full of sketches of the kids and their parents and they love it when he shows them and tells them stories.

* * *

The twins are nearly 4 when it happens. They are all cuddled up on the sofa watching a film when Yusuf brings them a beaker of milk each and holds them out. Mia grins at him and says

“Thank you Papà.”

Echoed by Lo

“Thank you Papà.”

Yusuf freezes. He just freezes half bent towards the kids holding out their beakers of milk. They just, they just called him Papà. His babies just...... but Fabio is their Papà! 

“Papà?”

They are peering up at him clearly confused as to why he isn’t moving. He sighs and sits between them popping the beakers safely on the table. They both scramble onto his lap and look up at him, all big eyes full of love and trust.

“I’m not Papà”

They just blink at him and he feels his mind starting to spin, he has to get this right. He spots his sketchbook on the table and careful not to dislodge the kids he reaches for it and turns to the sketch he did of them and their parents on their birthday, pointing to it and says 

“You have a Papà my darlings and he will always and forever be your Papà. Just like your Mamma will always and forever be your Mamma.”

Mimma points 

“Papà and Mamma in there.”

“Yes habibti and they love you both so very very much.”

He feels his eyes start to sting as he looks down at the sketch 

“Not Papà.”

Says Lo sadly 

“No habibi but I love you both so much.”

He will never truly know what possesses him in that moment but he will never regret, not for a single second. 

“I used to call my father Baba. Would you two like to call me Baba?”

“Baba.”

They both try it out and stare at him

“Or you can just call me Uncle Yusuf.”

“Our Baba”

Says Mimma snuggling into him.

“Our Baba.”

Says Paolo happily and that’s it he is their Baba and they never call him Uncle Yusuf again. He puts a photograph of Fab, Mia up in their bedroom and makes it a tradition that they say goodnight to Mamma and Papà before bed. 

Every night for the rest of his life Yusuf makes the same promise to Mia and Fabio

“I will love them as much as I can. I will give them everything I can. I will tell them all I can about you both. This I swear to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> There will be more in this universe but I just wanted to get some pre YSSTM Yusuf and the twins out there as we have Nico’s background already. 
> 
> As always thank you to everyone who reads this!


End file.
